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Originally Posted by abutterfinger25
Not to be a bummer on the party, but I don't think that American Airlines responded to Graham due to his posting on this site. In my dealings with the customer service agents at many of the major airlines, they do not troll these sites looking for complaints from their passengers and then attempt to resolve them. The airlines will also never respond to an individual complaint in any public forum such as this. Even if it will enhance their image.
I have noticed that are many helpful "airline employees" that roam these pages and offer insight, suggestions and tips. However, I would suspect that they do this on their own initiative and without any directive from their supervisors.
In Graham's case, I would suspect that he recieved a response because 1) his complaint reached a customer care agent who actually cares about his/her job (yes, there are some that exist) or 2) he also complaint to the DOT. Carriers will respond back to consumers quicker if they file a complaint with my office.
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Thank you for your opinion, but we respectfully disagree.
Any customer-oriented, for-profit business is going to be concerned with their public image. Good image = more profits. Poor image = more losses.
The concept here is very basic. No airline (or company for that matter) wants a growing public list of unresolved Complaints that will damage their image.
The complaints here aren't made up. They're coming directly from consumers - the airlines actual customers - with real experiences. The airlines can choose to do something about it or ignore their customers. At least this way, all consumers can see each others complaints and learn from each others experiences.
We strongly believe that the airlines take advantage of the private nature of Complaints to - in many cases - do very little about the Complaint, as we've seen several times on this site. We're trying to shed light on that very issue here at AirlineComplaints.org.
Once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, the Airlines will have to change their ways or face a public backlash. The choice, of course, will be up to them.
This is particularly true of US Airlines. Europe has considerably more pro-consumer laws in the Aviation industry than the US, so they can't get away with many of the things US Airlines get away with.
Have no doubt about it, AirlineComplaints.org is a Pro-Consumer website, but we certainly allow Airline Employees to voice their constructive opinions in order to have a balanced approach.
The Airline might be able to ignore a site with 85,000 visitors and 700 Complaints, but can they afford to ignore a site with over 1,000,000 visitors and 10,000 Complaints? We believe not, and it's just a matter of time.
In the end, we believe that this open line of communication will benefit all Stakeholders - airlines, consumers, and government agencies alike.
Transparency benefits everyone.